Chadic languages

Chadic
Geographic distribution	Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon
Linguistic classification	Afro-Asiatic Chadic
Proto-language	Proto-Chadic
Subdivisions	Biu–Mandara East Chadic Masa West Chadic
Language codes
ISO 639-5	cdc
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	chad1250
Map of the distribution of the Chadic languages within Africa
Detailed map of the distribution of Chadic languages in Western and Central Africa

The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 196 languages ^[1] spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, and northern Cameroon. By far the most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa, particularly Niger and the northern half of Nigeria. Hausa, is the only Chadic language with more than 1 million speakers.

Composition

Paul Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Roger Blench (2006), for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic. ^[2] Subsequent work by Joseph Lovestrand argues strongly that Kujarge is a valid member of East Chadic. The placing of Luri as a primary split of West Chadic is erroneous. Bernard Caron (2004) shows that this language is South Bauchi and part of the Polci cluster. A suggestion for including the language isolate Kujargé as an early-diverged member, which subsequently became influenced by East Chadic, has been made by Blench (2008). ^[3]

• Chadic
  • West Chadic
    • the Hausa, Ron, Bole, and Angas languages
    • the Bade, Warji, and Zaar languages
  • Biu–Mandara (Central Chadic)
    • the Bura, Kamwe, and Bata languages, among other groups
    • the Buduma and Musgu languages
    • Gidar
  • East Chadic
    • the Tumak, Nancere, and Kera languages
    • the Dangaléat, Mukulu, and Sokoro languages
  • Masa

A chart of the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic languages.

Loanwords

Chadic languages contain many Nilo-Saharan loanwords from either the Songhay or Maban branches, pointing to early contact between Chadic and Nilo-Saharan speakers as Chadic was migrating west. ^[4]

Although Adamawa languages are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited. ^[5]

Pronouns

Pronouns in Proto-Chadic, as compared to pronouns in Proto-Afroasiatic (Vossen & Dimmendaal 2020:351): ^[6]

Pronoun	Proto-Chadic	Proto-Afroasiatic
1	*ní	*i ~ *yi
2M	*ka	*ku, *ka
2F	*ki(m)	*kim
3M	*nì	*si, *isi
3F	*ta
1PL	*mun (incl.), *na (excl.)	(*-na ~ *-nu ~ *-ni) ?
2PL	*kun	*kuuna
3PL	*sun	*su ~ *usu

Comparative vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary in different Chadic branches listed in order from west to east, with reconstructions of other Afroasiatic branches also given for comparison:

Language	eye	ear	nose	tooth	tongue	mouth	blood	bone	tree	water	eat	name
Proto-Chadic [7]	*ydn	*km/*ɬm	*ntn	*s₃n; *ƙ-d	*ls₃-	*bk	*br	*ƙs₃		*ymn	*hrɗ (hard); *twy (soft)	*s₃m
Hausa [8]	ido	kunne	hanci	haƙori	harshe	baki	jini	ƙashi	itaci; bishiya	ruwa	ci	suna
Proto-Ron [9]		*kumu	**atin	*haŋgor	*liʃ	*fo	ɟɑ̄lɑ̄, tɾɔ̃̄	*kaʃ				*sum
Proto-South Bauchi [10]	*(gwà)yìr(-ŋ)	*kə̂m(-si)				*bʸak(-ì)	*bìràm	*gu(ŋ)ul	*pit-ə̀			*(yì)sûm(-s₃)
Polci [11]	yiir	kəəm	cin	haƙori	shen	bii	buran; bəran	gooloo	pət	maa	ci	suŋ
Proto-Central Chadic [12]	*hadaj; *tsɨʸ	*ɬɨmɨɗʸ	*hʷɨtsɨnʸ	*ɬɨɗɨnʸ	*ɗɨrɨnɨhʸ; *ɣanaɗʸ; *naɬɨj		*maj	*ɗiɬ; *kɨrakaɬʸ	*hʷɨp	*ɗɨjɨm	*zɨm	*ɬɨmɨɗʸ
Proto-Masa [13]	*ir	*hum	*cin	*s-	*si	*vun	*vuzur	*sok	*gu	*mb-	*ti	*sem
Kujarge [14]	kunɟu	kumayo ~ kime	kaata	kiya	aliŋati	apa	ɪbɪrí	(kaɟeɟa), kàyɛ́ya	kaʃíè	ʃia	(tona), tuye [imp. sg.]; tuwona [imp. pl.]	rúwà
Other Afroasiatic branches
Proto-Cushitic [15]	*ʔil-		*ʔisŋʷ-	*ʔiɬkʷ-	*caanrab-	*ʔaf-/*yaf-		*mikʷ’-; *moc’-			*-aħm-/*-uħm-; *ɬaam-	*sim-/*sum-
Proto-Maji [16]	*ʔaːb	*háːy		*aːç’u		*eːdu		*uːs	*inču	*haːy	*um
Tarifiyt Berber [17]	ŧit’t’	aməžžun, aməz’z’uɣ	ŧinzā	ŧiɣməsŧ	iřəs	aqəmmum	iđammən	iɣəss		aman	šš	isəm
Coptic	ia	ma'aje	ša	šol, najhe	las	ro	snof	kas	šēn	mou	wōm	ran
Proto-Semitic [18]	*ʕayn-	*ʔuḏn-	*ʔanp-	*šinn-	*lišān-		*dam-	*ʕaṯ̣m-	*ʕiṣ̂-	*mā̆y-	*ʔ-k-l	(*šim-)
Proto-Afroasiatic [19]	*ʔǐl-	*-ʔânxʷ-		*sǐn-/*sǎn- 'tip, point'	*-lis’- 'to lick'	*âf-	*dîm-/*dâm-	*k’os-	*ɣǎ	*âm-; *akʷ’-	*-mǎaʕ-; *-iit-; *-kʷ’-̌	*sǔm-/*sǐm-

Bibliography

• Caron, Bernard 2004. Le Luri: quelques notes sur une langue tchadique du Nigeria. In: Pascal Boyeldieu & Pierre Nougayrol (eds.), Langues et Cultures: Terrains d’Afrique. Hommages à France Cloarec-Heiss (Afrique et Language 7). 193–201. Louvain-Paris: Peeters.
• Lukas, Johannes (1936) 'The linguistic situation in the Lake Chad area in Central Africa.' Africa, 9, 332–349.
• Lukas, Johannes. Zentralsudanische Studien, Hamburg 1937;
• Newman, Paul; Ma, Roxana (1966). "Comparative Chadic: Phonology and lexicon". Journal of African Languages. 5: 218–251. hdl:2022/21342.
• Newman, Paul (1977) 'Chadic classification and reconstructions.' Afroasiatic Linguistics 5, 1, 1–42.
• Newman, Paul (1978) 'Chado-Hamitic 'adieu': new thoughts on Chadic language classification', in Fronzaroli, Pelio (ed.), Atti del Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica Camito-Semitica. Florence: Instituto de Linguistica e di Lingue Orientali, Università di Firenze, 389–397.
• Newman, Paul (1980) The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.
• Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Kiyoshi Shimizu: Chadic lexical roots. Reimer, Berlin 1981.
• Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Dymitr Ibriszimow: Chadic lexical roots. 2 volumes. Reimer, Berlin 1994
• Schuh, Russell (2003) 'Chadic overview', in M. Lionel Bender, Gabor Takacs, and David L. Appleyard (eds.), Selected Comparative-Historical Afrasian Linguistic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff , LINCOM Europa, 55–60.

Data sets

• Kraft, Charles H. (1981). "CLDF:Wordlist". CLDF dataset derived from Kraft's "Chadic Wordlists" from 1981. Geneva. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3534953.

See also

• Proto-Chadic reconstructions (Wiktionary)

References

1. "Chadic Languages; Ethnologue".
2. Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List Archived 2013-10-07 at the Wayback Machine (ms)
3. Blench, Roger. 2008. Links between Cushitic, Omotic, Chadic and the position of Kujarge Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine . 5th International Conference of Cushitic and Omotic languages.
4. Ehret, Christopher (5 December 2006). "The Nilo-Saharan background of Chadic". Studies in African Linguistics. 35: 56–66. doi: 10.32473/sal.v35i0.107316 . S2CID   195404449.
5. Blench, Roger. 2012. Linguistic evidence for the chronological stratification of populations South of Lake Chad. Presentation for Mega-Tchad Colloquium in Naples, September 13–15, 2012.
6. Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. Jungraithmayr, Herrmann; Ibriszimow, Dymitr (1994). Chadic Lexical Roots: Tentative reconstruction, grading, distribution and comments. (Sprache und Oralität in Afrika; 20), volume I, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.
8. Cosper, Ronald. 2015. Hausa dictionary. In: Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) The Intercontinental Dictionary Series. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://ids.clld.org/contributions/220 Archived 2020-01-01 at the Wayback Machine , Accessed on 2019-12-31.)
9. Blench, Roger. no date. Ron comparative wordlist Archived 2015-04-21 at the Wayback Machine .
10. Shimizu, Kiyoshi. 1978. The Southern Bauchi group of Chadic languages: a survey report. (Africana Marburgensia: Sonderheft, 2.) Marburg/Lahn: Africana Marburgensia.
11. Cosper, Ronald. 2015. Polci dictionary. In: Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) The Intercontinental Dictionary Series. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://ids.clld.org/contributions/221 Archived 2020-01-01 at the Wayback Machine , Accessed on 2019-12-31.)
12. Gravina, Richard. 2014. Proto-Central Chadic Lexicon Archived 2021-01-20 at the Wayback Machine . Webonary.
13. Shryock, Aaron (June 1997). "The classification of the Masa group of languages". Studies in African Linguistics. 26 (1): 30–62. doi: 10.32473/sal.v26i1.107396 . S2CID   185914860.
14. Doornbos, Paul. 1981. Field notes on Kujarge, language metadata, 200-word list plus numerals and pronouns.
15. Ehret, Christopher (1987). "Proto-Cushitic Reconstruction". Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika. 8: 7–180.
16. Aklilu, Yilma (2003). "Comparative phonology of the Maji languages". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 36: 59–88.
17. Kossmann, Maarten. 2009. Tarifiyt Berber vocabulary Archived 2024-05-26 at the Wayback Machine . In: Haspelmath, Martin & Tadmor, Uri (eds.) World Loanword Database. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
18. Kogan, Leonid (2012). "Proto-Semitic Lexicon". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 179–258. ISBN   978-3-11-025158-6.
19. Ehret, Christopher (1995). Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): vowels, tone, consonants, and vocabulary. University of California Press. ISBN   0-520-09799-8.